Survey begins on kids’ health in Telangana

Telangana government is gathering child-wise details as well as their weight, anemia, nutrition levels, etc.

Anganwadi supervisors were informed special training for the purpose and they are gathering all the details.

Khammam: Though the government has been spending crores of money on the health of children in the age group 0-3 years, the mortality rate between them is alarming. To check this, the government is collecting child-wise information including their weight, anemia, nutrition-levels, etc.

Anganwadi managers were imparted special preparation for the purpose and they are gathering all the details. They were requested to collect the details and make a separate file for every child.

Too thin is one of the common problems between newborn babies. About 140 in each 1,000 newborn children were identified to be underweight. Malnutrition between the kids (0-3 years) is another concern for the condition authorities.

In this backdrop, the management wants to have complete particulars of every kid to solve the problem. The aim of the current review is to assess the burden of under-nutrition and over-nutrition, its determinants and strategies essential to tackle malnutrition among under- three kids.

There are 20 ICDS missions in Khammam and Bhadradri-Kothagudem districts and around 3,299 main and 1,006 minor Anganwadi centers are working in the district. The total of 1.12 lakh kids aged less than three years have been taking nutrition from these centers.

About 12 percent of these children is found to have stunted development which means their height is less than the predictable height of their age. The stunting rate remains persistently high between these children in Telangana. Around one-third of the kids aged between 0-3 years and 40 percent of 12-year-old children agonize from stunted growing.

They show signs of thinness (under-nutrition). Anemia is also a big problematic among these kids. We will get clarity on the underfeeding, anemia, underweight and heavy after completion of the survey. It will support us to address the health problems.